September 12
Holidays
15 holidays recorded on September 12 throughout history
Quote of the Day
“This land may be profitable to those that will adventure it.”
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National Day of Encouragement started not in Washington but in a high school in Searcy, Arkansas, where a student gro…
National Day of Encouragement started not in Washington but in a high school in Searcy, Arkansas, where a student group decided in 2007 that one day should be set aside just to tell someone they're doing alright. It went national faster than most federal proposals ever do. Sometimes the simplest ideas move quickest. Go tell someone.
Russia's Day of Conception isn't a joke — it's a government-backed observance encouraging couples to, plainly put, ma…
Russia's Day of Conception isn't a joke — it's a government-backed observance encouraging couples to, plainly put, make babies. Some Russian regions have offered cars, refrigerators, and cash prizes to women who give birth exactly nine months later on Russia's national day, June 12. A demographic policy dressed up as a holiday. The fridges were real.
Enkutatash marks the Ethiopian and Eritrean New Year when the rainy season ends and yellow wildflowers bloom across t…
Enkutatash marks the Ethiopian and Eritrean New Year when the rainy season ends and yellow wildflowers bloom across the highlands. This celebration anchors the calendar for Rastafarians as well, signaling a fresh start rooted in agricultural cycles rather than the Gregorian year.
The Coptic New Year — Nayrouz — begins the Ethiopian and Coptic calendar, which counts from what Coptic Christians be…
The Coptic New Year — Nayrouz — begins the Ethiopian and Coptic calendar, which counts from what Coptic Christians believe was the year of Christ's birth, placing the current year roughly seven to eight years behind the Gregorian calendar. It falls on September 11 in most years, September 12 in leap years. In Egypt, Coptic Christians number around 10 million people — one of the oldest Christian communities on Earth, tracing its founding to St. Mark the Evangelist in the first century AD. They mark the new year by eating red dates, symbolizing the blood of martyrs. The tradition is 1,700 years old.
Maryland celebrates Defenders Day to commemorate the successful repulsion of British forces during the 1814 Battle of…
Maryland celebrates Defenders Day to commemorate the successful repulsion of British forces during the 1814 Battle of Baltimore. This victory at Fort McHenry prevented the capture of a vital port city and directly inspired Francis Scott Key to pen the lyrics that became the American national anthem.
Ailbe of Emly is one of the pre-Patrician saints of Ireland — meaning he supposedly brought Christianity to parts of …
Ailbe of Emly is one of the pre-Patrician saints of Ireland — meaning he supposedly brought Christianity to parts of Ireland before Patrick arrived, which made him theologically awkward and historically disputed for centuries. Legend says he was suckled by a wolf as an infant. His monastery at Emly in Tipperary became one of early Ireland's most important ecclesiastical sites. He died sometime in the late 5th or early 6th century. The wolf story has never been officially endorsed by the Church, but it hasn't been dropped either.
On September 12, 1974, Emperor Haile Selassie was driven away from his palace in a Volkswagen Beetle — the radical co…
On September 12, 1974, Emperor Haile Selassie was driven away from his palace in a Volkswagen Beetle — the radical committee apparently chose it deliberately for the humiliation. He'd ruled Ethiopia for 44 years, survived an Italian invasion, and addressed the League of Nations himself. The Derg military junta that replaced him would bring famine and mass killings. Ethiopia traded a monarchy for a dictatorship. The holiday marks the revolution; what the revolution actually delivered is a harder story.
John Henry Hobart became Episcopal Bishop of New York in 1811 and spent the next two decades arguing, essentially, th…
John Henry Hobart became Episcopal Bishop of New York in 1811 and spent the next two decades arguing, essentially, that the Episcopal Church should stop trying to be everything to everyone. High church, sacramental, distinctly different from Protestant dissenters — that was his position, and it was controversial enough to generate enemies. He founded what became Hobart College in 1822. He died at 53, worn out by travel and argument. The theological identity he insisted on gave the Episcopal Church a backbone it had been too polite to claim before he showed up.
Laisrén mac Nad Froích was abbot of Iona — the tiny Scottish island monastery founded by Columba — from around 605 un…
Laisrén mac Nad Froích was abbot of Iona — the tiny Scottish island monastery founded by Columba — from around 605 until his death in 605. He held the position for less than a year, possibly just months. Almost nothing else is recorded about him. But Iona under his brief tenure was still the most important center of Celtic Christianity in the British Isles, dispatching missionaries across Scotland and northern England. He appears in one line of the Annals of Ulster. One line was apparently enough.
Catholics honor the Holy Name of Mary today, a feast celebrating the mother of Jesus as a source of spiritual strength.
Catholics honor the Holy Name of Mary today, a feast celebrating the mother of Jesus as a source of spiritual strength. The day also commemorates Sacerdos of Lyon, a sixth-century bishop known for his diplomatic efforts in Merovingian politics, and Guy of Anderlecht, the patron saint of laborers and sacristans whose humble life remains a model of devotion.
The Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar runs on a cycle older than most modern nations, its saints' days and fasts w…
The Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar runs on a cycle older than most modern nations, its saints' days and fasts woven around the Julian calendar, which now runs 13 days behind the Gregorian one used by most of the world. What the Orthodox Church celebrates today, the rest of the world's calendars filed away nearly two weeks ago. Time in liturgy doesn't answer to popes or parliaments — it keeps its own count.
Cape Verde's independence on September 5, 1975 came from Portugal — the same colonial power Guinea-Bissau broke from …
Cape Verde's independence on September 5, 1975 came from Portugal — the same colonial power Guinea-Bissau broke from the year before. The two countries were once planned to unify, a dream of Amílcar Cabral's that died when he was assassinated. Cape Verde is 10 volcanic islands in the Atlantic, 570 kilometers off the West African coast, uninhabited when the Portuguese arrived in 1456. Today it celebrates statehood with a population whose ancestors were brought there as enslaved people to work a colony that didn't yet exist. National Day holds that whole history at once.
The UN Day for South-South Cooperation recognizes the long history of developing nations sharing technical expertise,…
The UN Day for South-South Cooperation recognizes the long history of developing nations sharing technical expertise, resources, and economic strategies with each other — outside the traditional north-to-south aid model. The concept gained formal momentum at the Buenos Aires Plan of Action in 1978, when 138 countries agreed to coordinate development cooperation among themselves. It's a quiet counterweight to dependency on wealthy nations as the primary source of development support. The day doesn't make headlines. But the partnerships it represents — agricultural technology shared between African and Latin American nations, health infrastructure built by cooperation between Asian states — quietly shape how a large portion of the world actually develops.
On September 12, 1897, 21 Sikh soldiers of the 36th Sikh Regiment held a small mud-walled post called Saragarhi again…
On September 12, 1897, 21 Sikh soldiers of the 36th Sikh Regiment held a small mud-walled post called Saragarhi against an estimated 10,000 Afghan Pashtun tribesmen. They held for hours. All 21 died. The Indian Parliament was adjourned in their honor — one of very few times it has been adjourned for soldiers, not heads of state. Each of the 21 was awarded the Indian Order of Merit, the highest gallantry honor available to Indian soldiers under British command at the time. The battle has been called one of history's great last stands. The Sikh community has remembered it without interruption ever since.
The San Patricio Battalion were Irish immigrants — and some Germans, Scots, and Americans — who deserted the U.S.
The San Patricio Battalion were Irish immigrants — and some Germans, Scots, and Americans — who deserted the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War and fought for Mexico instead. Many were Catholic and felt more solidarity with Mexicans than with the Protestant officers who treated them badly. After the fall of Chapultepec in 1847, the U.S. Army hanged 50 of them. Mexico still honors them as heroes. The men the U.S. executed as traitors have a monument in Mexico City and an annual commemoration. Same men, two countries, two completely opposite verdicts.